TV dongle/STB - browse any website

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

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This is an area I don't have much experience in, and appears to be quite a number of options to choose from. Would like to know what works best in GD's experience...

So I have the usual setup. "Smart" TV connected to WiFi via bb router. PC (desktop) also connected to said router except by cat5 cable. Connected to TV are PS2; Now TV (roku variant iirc); Sky box.

First the TV has a browser app - but it's an old, old version of Chrome (looks like) branded as "Samsung Browser" - and the problem is it no longer works with 2018 websites. Things move on, we have HTML5, NPAPI died, etc.

Ideally I don't want to replace the TV - yet.

So there appear to be two categories of device - Type A mirrors the output of your Android, iOS device; Type B is actually streaming content from the 'net.

The desktop PC doesn't have Miracast and neither probably does the TV. It has DLNA but I don't think this helps me at all. DLNA lets me stream music or videos as far as I can tell, but that's it; it doesn't do screen mirroring.

Lumped in with the screen mirroring devices are Steam's Steam Link thingy. I've tried this over WiFi and the playback was awful. Playing YT on the PC and streaming it to the TV was unwatchable - even by my low standards. This might be OK if I cabled up the TV; would involve much DIY.

So the Type B devices are your Fire TV/Fire Stick/Chromecast/Roku.

Unbelievably, neither Chromecast nor Roku have browser apps. Why the heck not I have no idea. Do people only want to go to YT or Netflix on their TV? I guess they browse all the other stuff on their phones. OK, fine - it rules them out anyhow.

Fire Stick has Silk and Firefox app - perfect. This certainly seems like an option. I've heard the Fire Stick 4k is really, really slow... any comments here?

Lastly I guess I could invest in a laptop and physically cable the laptop to the TV via HDMI. A bit overkill perhaps. I have no need of a laptop.

My phone is... wait for it... Windows 8 :p Don't laugh, it has really great battery life. I like it. Shut up. It's anyhow useless for this purpose. Stop sniggering back there.

So the goal as per thread title is to browse any website on the TV. Not just YT, Netflix or Prime (because any of 10,000 boxes and sticks allow this!)

Is the Fire Stick pretty much the only/best option here?
 
Firestick install a mirroring app and cast your laptop to it, much better than trying to do any actual browsing using the box/remote.
 
I'm currently looking into grabbing an Android TV box of some description, because the Smart features on Samsung TVs are ******* useless. You can't even install UKTV Play on it. Have recently found out though that you have to be careful, as some boxes come rooted as standard which prevents you from watching anything on Netflix at anything more than 480p.
 
neil_g said:
You can mirror your device screen using android and chrome cast so can use the device browser
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Yeah Android and iOS only for that tho. My phone is a Windows 8 phone. Doesn't work with Chromecast from what I've read.

I know I could buy new everything, but I'm kind of trying not to. Been an expensive month already.
 
You need a pooter. IMO boxes always have a compromise - TV devices (smart TVs and set top boxes) are embedded hardware so very limited power. They simply won't give you the web browsing experience you want.

Personally I also tend not to do sofa big-screen browsing. But I do have my 48" TV over a desk with keyboard and mouse so... If I'm doing proper web stuff I get off the couch.

I would recommend a laptop or mini PC as it sounds like that will tick your playback boxes and your browsing boxes with a single purchase. Try to get something more powerful than the bare minimum. I got a Windows, Atom based mini pc TV box doodad and it was great for 6 months then 2GB RAM stopped being enough. Non-upgradeable.
 
I'm a big fan of smart tv's / streamers and I think I've needed to put a website on the TV about once and that was for a visiting guest :p

Anyway using your desktop you could cast a chrome tab to a chromecast, it will display whatever is on the tab but video quality will depend on the network connection between the two and will never be as good as say casting YouTube direct (which you can also do from your PC / phone) to the Samsung app or chromecast.

On the fire TV you can sideload apps but it does have browsers available from the app store. Typing and navigating websites with a remote is tricky to say the least though.

You could try something like teamviewer remote desktop viewer on the fire / Android tv, which if your windows phone has an app means you could control your PC from your phone while watching it on the TV. :o

Teamviewer will also require a decent connection between the two and still won't be the same as watching direct. Anydesk is similar but supposed to be better for video but I haven't tried it.

Is the desktop close to the tv? Could you just run a long hdmi lead?

Edit: you sure the TV doesn't have miracast? My Samsung TV is pretty old and it has it.
 
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MonkeyMan said:
Edit: you sure the TV doesn't have miracast? My Samsung TV is pretty old and it has it.
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Well damn! It does... I read before that Samsung calls its DLNA imlementation "AllShare", so I ignored all the AllShare options on the TV. However it calls its Miracast implementation "AllShare Cast"...

And having just projected my Win8 Phone's browser... it works great!

Cheers, you've probably just saved me a few bob!
 
FoxEye said:
Well damn! It does... I read before that Samsung calls its DLNA imlementation "AllShare", so I ignored all the AllShare options on the TV. However it calls its Miracast implementation "AllShare Cast"...

And having just projected my Win8 Phone's browser... it works great!

Cheers, you've probably just saved me a few bob!
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When you select miracast, can't you then right click your desktop and share screen wirelessly?? If both devices are linked to your router this should work
 
RoboCod said:
When you select miracast, can't you then right click your desktop and share screen wirelessly?? If both devices are linked to your router this should work
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Did a bit more reading about this last night. Miracast (even Miracast over Infrastructure) requires that both the source and receiver have WiFi (WiDi) capability. The initial handshake/discovery is done over wifi, even if you then route the Miracast traffic over ethernet to your router.

So my desktop PC can't use Miracast at all. But the phone can which is great. I only need to access a specific site once a month and to project it to the TV, for the benefit of my mum.
 
FoxEye said:
Bit expensive, tbh. Fire Stick can hopefully be had for about £25 on Black Friday (will probably pick one up or the 4k stick). PC on a stick is about £80 - £100 and above.
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I believe the Intel Compute Stick originally used a Bay Trail Atom, which is what my box has. I loved it for a while, emulated PS1 and lots of browsing. But it sort of gave up as Windows 10 updated itself more and more I think.
 
Android TV is pretty crap. I thought it was/has been end of life.
I have an Asus Nexus player on the bedroom tv and THE range of applications is weak.
 
Can't you cast tabs to Chromecast from Win pc using Chrome browser?
Plex
Did it for a while, worked ok.
 
Freddie1980 said:
Maybe you could consider a SBC like a Raspberry PI and use something like unified remote on your phone to operate it.
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I considered it for sure, but have so many projects on the go that it's just a case of not wanting to spend time on a custom solution.

Not a bad idea tho.
 
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